


a sea story

by bluewalk



Series: 30_onepiece: Sanji [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-30
Updated: 2011-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewalk/pseuds/bluewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[#28 burglar] <em>embers in his small bird-bones</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	a sea story

—goes like this.

The island is weeks behind him, but the scars run deep and deeper, and although the rocking of a ship at sea was all the comfort he’d ever needed before, this ship is not the Orbit and this is not before and the fear still smolders like embers in his small bird-bones. The paranoia, the what-ifs and possibilities so repulsive it makes him tear out of his cabin in the middle of the night, feet bare and eyes wild. He knows where the kitchens are, has got the path embedded in his memory like lines on his palm. He gropes in the dark until he finds the fridge and then his fingers are scrabbling at the lock on the fridge door, frantic with terror and need.

“No,” he moans low. “No, no, no.”

He yanks at the lock so hard he feels as if his arms will pop out of their sockets. They don’t, so he yanks again, harder and harder still in rapid succession, one leg braced against the fridge door, until he’s breathless and trembling. His fingers suddenly lose their grip and he falls backwards, head colliding solidly with a table leg. White lights, and then darkness creeps back in.

The creaking of the ship harsh in his ears.

He lays there stunned, the world spinning just like it did when he was so weak and starved that every little movement made him gasp and clench his brittle jaw. He’s suddenly so convinced that the nightmare has not ended that he starts to cry, loud and earnest and _hungry_ , hungry even though he had eaten before bed, hungry even though Zeff had promised, he had promised that Sanji would always eat, so long as Zeff was around. _Promised_ , but that means nothing now, and he screams Zeff’s name, voice high and shrill and angry and he feels so betrayed he starts to beat his fists bloody on the linoleum floor.

It’s childish spite and terrible desperation. If he can’t hurt Zeff, then he can hurt himself, he can make bruises bloom under his skin, scream until his throat is sandpaper raw, slam his knuckles against the floor until his hands are a broken mess—that’ll show Zeff, that’ll teach him never to ignore him again, not unless he wants Sanji to tear himself apart with his own hands, not unless—

He doesn’t know how long he’s been thrashing when he’s lifted into the air by the scruff of his neck. He can’t see who it is for the tears in his eyes, and he kicks wildly, arms flailing, and he howls Zeff’s name at the top of his lungs, over and over, inconsolable and a child.

Someone turns on the lights, and someone roars, “Shut up!” right into his ear, and it rattles his brains so much that he actually shuts up. Shuts up and blinks rapidly to clear his vision and there is the irritated face of some unfamiliar chef scowling at him. It makes him feel like a caught rat, vulnerable and insignificant, and he cannot handle feeling like that ever again.

He’s about to scream for Zeff again when the chef is shoved aside, and then there are Zeff’s hands taking him, bringing him over to the table to set him down. Sanji casts a quick glance around the room and sees that he has woken half the kitchen staff and brought them running. He doesn’t care. His heart is beating too fast and he is dizzy.

“What’s wrong with you, kid?” Zeff is asking him, gruff like he always is, but he looks so haggard and worried that Sanji can’t bring himself to shout at him.

“I’m hungry,” he hiccups as Zeff examines his small bruised hands with a frown. “I’m hungry. You _promised_.”

And Zeff doesn’t sigh, he doesn’t roll his eyes in exasperation, and he doesn’t yell or scold. He only nods without question and hobbles away on his new wooden leg, and Sanji watches him go, trying to catch his breath as a wave of what he knows must be guilt washes over him.

“The brat’s hungry,” Zeff is saying to the head chef, one of those who was roused from slumber, a round mountain of a man who glares at Zeff like he’s crazy. “Do your job and feed him,” Zeff concludes.

The head chef looks like he’s about to argue, and he looks big and well-fed enough to crush even Zeff, but then he sweeps his eyes over to where Sanji is sitting and trying not to cry again, Sanji who turned ten on an empty stomach and an empty horizon, who is a tiny sapling of a boy, and he finally heaves a sigh. “Fine,’ he grumbles, though his expression has softened so that he looks less like a hound and more like a man. “But only to get him to shut up.”

That’s good enough. Sanji, with his battered knuckles and the dark circles under his eyes, gets a bowl of leftover fish stew bigger than his head, hot and rich and smelling so delicious that he almost starts to cry again. Zeff has to remind him to take small bites, to swallow before shoveling another spoonful in his mouth. It’s all Sanji can do not to scoop up the stew with his bare hands, but he obeys because when he glances up, Zeff looks tired and sad, and the guilt transcends even hunger.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles at last, staring down at his bowl. It’s half-empty now. Half-empty, he says to himself, not half-full because half left really means half gone.

Zeff makes a vague noise that sounds like dismissal or forgiveness. The kitchens are quiet again, all the cooks having trailed back to bed. The ship is a gentle cradle. “When we get that floating restaurant we’ve been yammering on about,” Zeff says, “I’ll let you keep the key to the fridge. But you have to promise never to steal food again. You come to me if you’re hungry, got it?”

Sanji peeks up at him through the fringe of his hair. He’s not too young to understand that he will always be just a little bit hollow, a reminder of the vastness inside him, but he is also young enough to believe that Zeff can make it better. And maybe he can, at least for now, at least until Sanji is strong enough to hunt down his own nightmares, to chase his own dreams, to navigate the vastness that is himself without losing his way.

But for now there is Zeff, and Sanji puts down his spoon, pushes the bowl across the table with his skinny stick-arms. He avoids Zeff’s eyes, keeps his head down and his shoulders anxiously hunched, his hands picking at the hem of his shirt. Then Zeff makes another noise, one that sounds amused, and only when Zeff takes his first bite does Sanji allow himself to nod in answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 02 August 2011.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Chinese translation on "a sea story"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/397980) by [renata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renata/pseuds/renata)




End file.
